


blud

by sherlock221Bismymuse



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Forbidden Love, M/M, Soulmates, True Love, discovering love, holmescest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 15,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22225966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlock221Bismymuse/pseuds/sherlock221Bismymuse
Summary: blud1. UK Slang for Mate. (as in friend/ pal)2. Russian for one of the Slavic fairies in Slavic mythology, an evil-deity that causes disorientation and leads a person aimlessly around and round. The term also refers to illicit fornication, the desire for which Slavic clerics claimed to come from the Devil.[1]
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes
Comments: 53
Kudos: 46





	1. Once upon a fairy tale there lived a boy and his brother

**Author's Note:**

> Mycroft is 32 and Sherlock is 26 in present day. The story goes back and forth in time and hopefully the transition explanations will make sense!
> 
> Title is inspired by the conversation between Sherlock and Mycroft after his return from the Fall when he refers to him as blud.
> 
> The very first ever Holmescest I read and was completely bowled over was scriggly’s ‘And the fever when I am beside him’. It is a Holmescest love story to end all love stories….but of course those of us in this ship who have it real bad still need to keep writing more love stories and make sure these two are bonded together forever with all the requisite angst and forbidden-ness and depth which makes this the most perfect romance ever.  
> scriggly seems to have deleted their account and all the fics which is a huge tragedy but this fic is a small homage to the author.
> 
> I know I have two WIPs around already but *shrugs* what the muse wants the muse gets....

Their parents had finally retired for the night. Pleased at having been able to spend time with their sons on Christmas Day. Both their sons.

Sherlock had been a bit less surly than usual although he had ignored Mycroft quite completely.

_Not yet forgiven for having ‘left him’ to go to college then…._ Mycroft thought. But he remembered with fond wistfulness the days gone by, when as children they used to sit together and watch movies at this time of the night. He would sit on the floor, leaning against the sofa, his legs stretched out in a vee and Sherlock sitting inside his legs with his back to his older brother’s chest.

Most of Mycroft’s favorite movie memories included this sensation. Sherlock leaning against his chest, one of his own hands around Sherlock’s always too slender waist while the other was either petting his curly head or feeding him popcorn or some kind of food.

Sherlock never asked to see any particular movie. He would just slink in when Mycroft was there and sit and be willing to watch whatever Mycroft had been watching.

Once, only once, Mycroft had changed the film to see one that he thought more age appropriate for his younger brother. Sherlock had just turned and looked at him in disgust when something really childish started on screen. Mycroft had rolled his eyes and changed the film back to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary. Which was utterly age inappropriate for any ordinary 8 year old but then it was obvious years ago that Sherlock was anything but an ordinary boy.

So they had watched, cocooned in that peaceful space, just the two of them.

Comfortable. Not just physically but somehow connected mentally. Fitted together like they belonged. Utterly and completely content.

One soul watching out of two pairs of eyes. One mind contemplating inside two brains.

The way it was always meant to be.


	2. Come take my hand and let us walk through an enchanted forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is life but a series of memories to treasure and re-visit?

Whenever Sherlock thought of home, it was those moments and those hours that he remembered. 

His safe space. His sanctuary. His refuge.

Where he belonged.

In Mycroft’s arms.

Those were precious moments of utter bliss.

But there were so many other moments too, almost as precious, scattered like pearls across the velvet landscape of his childhood.

All of them involving Mycroft.

The long afternoons when they would learn together, since Mycroft was home schooled, having surpassed all teachers years ago. His soft voice, not yet the commanding one it would become later on, almost hypnotizing Sherlock with its cadences and lilt.

(Many years later he would realize that his inability to fall asleep stemmed from this missing sound in the background, soothing him like a lullaby. He always felt safe when Mycroft was around.)

Those long Sundays in the library, with him lying on the carpet, kicking his legs in the air, teasing Mycroft as he attempted to get him to focus on the latest news and to analyze it.

“Sherlock, you read but you need to also analyze!” Mycroft would say, with all the seriousness of a self- taught prodigy. “There is always a pattern.”

There were those exciting evenings when he could finally persuade Mycroft to leave his books and they would go out and play pirates. Or act out something from Oscar Wilde’s plays.

Mycroft was priceless as Lady Bracknell and Sherlock would always forget his own role and lines and just watch his Mycie fan himself in agitation and adjust his bonnet and he would shout with laughter.

There were those quiet moments of dusk when they would lie down in the garden under the darkening sky, waiting for the stars to come out. Mycroft knew the names of all the constellations of course and had informed Sherlock that many of the stars they ‘saw’ may not even be in existence since they were so many light years away.

He remembered reaching out for Mycroft’s hand to anchor him when he absorbed this information. The Universe was so vast and scary. But he would always be safe if Mycroft was with him. Always.

Mycroft turned to look at him and held his hand tighter, knowing what was going on inside that mind. He gave him a reassuring smile and gently rubbed his thumb over his closed fist.

_I’ve got you_ that look said. _Don’t worry. I will always be there for you._

That feeling, that certainty, had settled itself into his heart and mind and was woven into the very fabric of his being that day.

There are only two days that matter. The day you were born. And the day you found out why.

He had found out why. He knew it with a quiet certainty that permeated every cell of his body.

Then there were those quiet, almost endless nights when they would read together in the bedroom. Of course it was usually Mycroft who would read to him and he would listen, fascinated. Poems, plays, fables, philosophical musings….everything was absorbed and analyzed and retained.

So many snippets came back to him even now, especially when he was tired or just about to fall asleep. Some words would drift out from the rooms in the Mind Palace.

On some days it may be Ozymandias.

“My name is Ozymandias King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains.

Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

On another day it would be a quote from Chekov. “The world is, of course, nothing but our conception of it.”

Sometimes even now, when the late afternoon sun was just right and Sherlock stood at the window of 221B, with his violin tucked under his chin and everything seemed bathed in gold he would think of those precious lost hours with just him and Mycroft in the library with the rest of the world turned to dust for all that it mattered. 

" I walked home with a gold dark boy And never a word I'd say

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Had taken my speech away"

.

.

Now that he thought of it, Mycroft had been just a young boy himself in those days. He couldn’t have been more than 14 then because it was still a couple of years before he would leave for university.

That explained a lot of the choices of what he read out-- still a teenager capable of yearning for romance, beginning to understand mortality, questioning existing frameworks, sensing existential angst and finding his way in the world-- the one inside his head and the one outside.

A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!"  
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation."

Mycroft read voraciously and cast a wide net.

One day he would be deep into the mystic philosophy of Gurdjieff and tell Sherlock solemnly “ _A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.”_

Sherlock would nod at him, clearly understanding the wisdom of this quote as he sat at the feet of one who possessed all the knowledge; and feeling not even a bit worried that he couldn’t keep up.

On other days he would grimly caution him. “I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.”

Regularly he would read out the Greek classics, Plato and Aristotle’s debates, sometimes Karl Marx, sometimes Shakespeare, or the Lake District Poets. On occasion Sherlock even recalls listening to Jeeves and Wooster’s stories as a break from Oscar Wilde or H.H.Munro.

.

.

In retrospect, a lot of it did go over his head, even though Mycroft would often considerately and patiently stop and explain and ask him if he understood. Sherlock would always nod, not wanting to appear anything less than smart in front of his hero and sometimes Mycroft would allow the deception but sometimes he would smirk.

Then Sherlock would flush in embarrassment and sulk and hide away but Mycroft would always find him. Sherlock would resist initially and refuse to come out but eventually he would give in. Mycroft’s voice would cajole him into reluctant forgiveness and when he did emerge from his hiding place his older brother would be kind enough to never refer to the incident again but would just ruffle his curls fondly.

“Forgive me?” He would ask his beloved.

“I will think about it.” Sherlock would say with as much snooty dignity and disdain as he could muster.

.

.

And so it went on, year upon year and hour upon hour of blissful sharing, companionship, bonding.

Mycroft taught Sherlock the foundations of everything he knew. Languages. Slavic, Indo-European, African, Australo-Asian. Patterns, codes and cyphers. Mind Palace construction and management. Deductions and processes.

Everything.

.

.

There would be no one else like that in his life.

No one else.

Ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias
> 
> 2\. Romance by W J Turner https://www.bartleby.com/103/158.html
> 
> 3\. A Man Said to the Universe By Stephen Crane
> 
> 4\. Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness, and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff described a method attempting to do so, calling the discipline "The Work" (connoting "work on oneself") or "the Method. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff
> 
> 5\. “I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.”  
> ― Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum


	3. Our family tree grows in the Garden of Eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The days are long gone but the ripples remain on the pond of memories.

Whenever he contemplated it in later years, he thought that he really should have seen it coming.

The isolated childhood with only his older brother for constant company. The brilliance that no one could possibly match, shaped under his indulgent guidance. The inability to handle emotions on an even keel and the passion that made it even more difficult to control, combined with the fierce possessiveness he showed towards his older brother.

Although most children recognize themselves as separate entities and become self-aware by the time they are 2 years of age, this is usually followed by a sense of self-consciousness when they become shy or try to hide or in some way want to become invisible as they figure out who they really are as separate entities. A bit like a butterfly in the chrysalis before it emerges.

The trouble was that although Sherlock had become self-aware by the time he was two as expected he genuinely believed that he was one unit with his brother and not a separate entity, for many years afterwards. When he was four years old and they attempted to send him to the neighbourhood playschool for a few hours, he had howled in distress as though he was being torn apart from limb to limb and neither Mummy nor Mycroft had been strong enough to insist that he go anyway.

He had clung to Mycroft all that day and all that night, his entire skinny body trembling with terror and outrage at the attempted separation.

It had taken an entire week for him to move off Mycroft’s lap and be convinced that neither of them would vanish. “Here, sit right next to me.” Mycroft had crooned, in a soothing voice. “I am not going anywhere. Here. Hold my hand, brother mine.”

“Mine.” Sherlock had chanted fiercely. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”

Mummy had taken them to the local child counsellor who had confirmed that her second child was also gifted with the clearly superior intelligence beyond the highest percentile and cautioned her that emotional maturity did not always catch up quickly with such individuals.

She had come home in deep thought. Somehow Mycroft had better emotional control or was it that she had been younger and had more patience when she had raised him? She had cut down on her professional commitments to raise the boys but their father still worked punishing hours and she had essentially raised the boys almost single- handedly so far. She wondered how she could make it all work best for Sherlock.

She had been so worried about Sherlock that she had forgotten the second half of that equation.

Mycroft may not have been openly as emotional as his younger brother, both by the maturity of his years and by his greater capacity for control but there was no doubt that he reciprocated Sherlock’s love in depth if not in fervour.

So Mycroft had stepped up even more and continued to love him and protect him and indulge him while also teaching him everything he himself was learning. He had already surpassed every tutor and teacher they had brought in and from the age of 8 had been self- taught, using the enormous home library as his reference.

As a result of this, his hours spent with Sherlock in the library resulted in discussions ranging from Aristotle’s theories of logic and deductive reasoning to Yeats’ poetry and from understanding fractals to supernovas. They learnt memory tricks and codes and deductions together. They studied the globe and anatomy textbooks, poisons and medicines.

While Mycroft practised the piano, Sherlock had preferred the violin and they spent many happy hours playing and composing together.

Some days it felt as though the music of the spheres was emerging from their fingers and Mycroft could almost see the swirls of a cosmic glow and patterns of stardust surrounding them. He had often wondered if that was what souls looked like and if this was their two souls meeting in a quiet and intimate dance.

He knew with a fierce certainty that there would be no one else like that in his life.

No one else.

Ever.

.

.

Unfortunately the march of time is relentless and the boys grew older.

As Mycroft grew older he matured and his ever brilliant mind was now a vast and wonderful galaxy of its own, expanding, throbbing, pulsars and quasars and nebulae emerging at the speed of light, filled with ingenuity, wizardry, patterns and solutions.

He still adored his younger brother but genius though he too was, he simply could not make so many of the leaps that his brain could.

No matter how genius a person is, you can’t explain the calculus when they are still grappling with quadratics.

Of course Mycroft knew that even quadratics was a huge step up from the ‘goldfish’ as he called ‘ordinary’ people. They were still doing addition and subtraction using their fingers compared to what he was doing. He was not being elitist but merely aware of the vast distance between him and others.

It did not make him proud because he realized how much nature as well as nurture had contributed to it. If he had different parents, and perhaps no library and no Sherlock to sound out his theories with, he may well have been a regular pen pusher in Her Majesty’s Government, the way other men from his aristocratic family had managed to do.

By the time Mycroft had moved on to Machiavelli, psychology and political games, he had also moved out for further studies and hence left Sherlock’s memories frozen in a bubble where romance and philosophy and music was the essence of their time together.

Mycroft himself went on to chant ‘caring is not an advantage’ but he left Sherlock behind with memories of so much caring that it left him feeling overwhelmed and bereft at the same time.

He left Sherlock remembering the delight of Thomas Hardy telling him “The sky was clear -- remarkably clear -- and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.”

He left him with memories of haikus and yearning and desire.

_river in your eyes_  
i will follow its long path  
time can forgive us

It never occurred to Mycroft that the young boy listening to him was always imagining every story they read as being one with the two of them in it.

They were Romus and Remulus, they were Hercules and Apollo…….they were Ozymandias and the Traveller, they were the golden boys looking at Chimborazo Cotopaxi.

They were Plato and Aristotle and they were Ernest Worthing and Lady Bracknell, they were The Black Monk and the Three Sisters in Chekov’s plays.

The voice in Sherlock’s head and in his Mind Palace was always and only Mycroft’s.

It was always just the two of them that Sherlock imagined on the world’s stage.

Mycroft, his magnificent hero and himself, the most ardent worshipper.

No one else.

Ever.

.

.

Was it any wonder then that the boy genius grew up resenting what had been taken away from his private universe and resenting the one who had done it? The one who had left him…….abandoned, lonely, miserable, bereft.

But……..the one who taken it all away was also the one who had given it to him in the first place…..He was his world and everything in it!

It was this dual war that Sherlock fought from both sides inside himself that guided their story in the years to come.

The anger and hatred and love and desire all coiled around each other like the snake around the apple tree in his Garden of Eden.

And the forbidden love emerged from the tree of knowledge.

.

.

Mycroft may have taught him everything, observed everything, known everything about him. But he didn’t notice when Sherlock’s heart also learnt how to love.

To love him.


	4. Inside the Chamber of our Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What is a movie but a dance of light and shadow? A magic trick….

Mycroft remembered that during those movie sessions, once in a while, Sherlock would ask him a question. It would usually be unrelated to what they were viewing and often to do with something that had been nagging at him or bothering him….. like a pebble in a shoe that couldn’t come loose until he felt at ease.

Which was always in Mycroft’s arms.

Then he would ask the older boy questions about death and loyalty and imperialism and anarchy and serial killers. And sometimes about fidelity and sex and religion and gravity.

Mycroft would always answer him patiently, to the best of his knowledge, (which was a rather great amount already!), even though it meant missing out on what was happening in the film.

It was too tedious to rewind the reels and anyway, for that, Mycroft would have to get up. By the unspoken covenant, their seating position once Sherlock settled into it was sacred and not to be disturbed for such trivial matters.

Mummy had peeped in only once during all their viewings and at that time Sherlock had been fast asleep against Mycroft and the older brother was holding him gently, his head tucked against his neck.

She had smiled, happy that her younger born whirlwind had been tamed for at least that brief interval. She went away as quietly as she came.

Mycroft had seen her because of the reflection in the glass of the book cupboard on the side but he never mentioned it and neither did she.

After that no one ever came down that passage when the boys were together.

.

.

In retrospect there may have been much more trust and solitude than was healthy or safe.

Mycroft often mused if things would have been different if they hadn’t been left alone quite so much. He would look at the beautiful, almost serene face sleeping on the pillow next to him and contemplate.

Often he would convince himself that this was inevitable.

_How could it not be? When they were soul mates and two parts of a whole? When just the thought of him would cause a hot pain in the centre of his being and the actual sight of his face, those eyes, that smile, would unravel him till he wanted to ……_

But just as often he would convince himself that he was the world’s worst big brother and he should have known better and he should have said no the first time that anything happened.

_Or at least the second time_

_Or any time._

But he craved this with every fiber of his being. The sense of rightness and togetherness and belonging and perfection.

The entire universe had conspired to put them together. In the same family, under the same roof, so there would be no chance of missing each other in this lifetime….…..Surely, this was no coincidence.

Was it?


	5. No spell is more enchanting than true love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is waiting it out in Hungary after the Fall and reminisces

It has been 6 months now. They have gone by faster than he expected but the work he had set out to do wasn’t going to finish at the same speed unfortunately. The network was deeper and trickier to unearth than they had suspected.

He had barely managed to unravel a few threads in Eastern Europe and started on some in North Africa.

Evil was so much more pervasive than good…..perhaps because it also thrived where there was indifference whereas to be good one had to actively choose to be so every single time.

Today had been a day of enforced rest.

He was learning the rhythms of his transport, now that John wasn’t around to take care of his needs for food and remind him to sleep.

His fingers itched for his violin. His skin longed for the comfort of his own clean sheets.

But most of all his entire body hungered for the sanctuary of his brother’s arms.

.

.

It had been fourteen years since they had found each other, finally.

It had been so easy for Sherlock to accept his feelings. After all they were just an extension and an evolution of his belief as a child that they were one unit.

Perfect. Together.

There could not be anyone else.

Ever.

.

.

And the memory of that Kiss. 

That kiss which had rearranged his very molecular structure and reoriented the atoms and spliced every DNA helix and branded every cell.

_My._

That was the only word that echoed through his entire being.

If he could be made into a violin that is all he would play when the bow was drawn on his strings. If he was a flute then every breath would sing that name.

If he was the wind he would whisper it to every tree. If he was the ocean he would shush the sands to sleep with that lullaby. If he was a cloud that is what every raindrop would sing as it fell on the earth.

It was too powerful and magnificent and terrifying a feeling to be contained in a word as small as love.

So he never said it.

But he knew.

And he thought Mycroft did not. Because he never said it.

.

.

Mycroft had recognized the feelings bubbling up inside him early on too but had held them at bay, struggling, if not for the sake of the law or society but for the sake of his own little brother getting hurt.

His beautiful, incandescent, brilliant brother.

The brother who was his waking thought and sleeping dreams. The rush of blood in his heart and the oxygen in his breath and the echoing song in his head. The very frame of his bones and the tension in his limbs.

_Sherlock._

It was too powerful and magnificent and terrifying a feeling to be contained in a word as small as love.

So he never said it.

But he knew.

And he thought Sherlock did not. Because he never said it.

.

.

Later, when it had all unravelled spectacularly, he had still tried to reason with Sherlock, and dissuade him.

Especially after that Kiss.

Which had undone him and re-formatted him and deconstructed him and re-created him.

Into a new creature made of love and darkness.

He had almost felt his soul twist itself physically and distort all he knew himself to have ever been. _There could be no going back now…..could there?_

Even if all that lay ahead of them was madness and chaos.

.

.

His logical brain offered solutions.

The sexual and physical attraction was one thing and could be sought elsewhere too. It is said that in a planet teeming with 7 billion, each one of us has as many as 6 doppelgangers. Lookalikes. Surely they could each find someone somehow who matched the other physically and then imagination could help with the rest.

Safer than getting entangled in a relationship from which there could be no easy escape nor protection.

.

.

_Please Sherlock surely you can find someone else. Look at you! Gorgeous! Brilliant!_

_What if things go wrong between us?_

_What if this turns to hate?_

_What will it do to Mummy?_

And what Mycroft always left unsaid _\-- What will it to do me if you end it?! Will I survive the agony of it?_

Sherlock had always listened to these questions patiently and the answer was in his eyes, even if Mycroft would not believe the words that were said.

There could be no one else.

Ever.


	6. The dance of the seven veils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the 7 million people on this planet and he had to go and fall for the one person he could never have.

When Mycroft had finally accepted the inevitable he had been in the movie room, after Christmas dinner, all those years ago, after their parents had turned in for the night.

Sherlock had ignored him all evening and had slunk away to his room even before dinner was fully done with.

Mycroft had come to the movie room in a nostalgic mood, unwilling to accept even to himself that he came there in hope….that maybe ….if at all… Sherlock might consider……keeping him company the way they used to as children.

He wished it was still as easy to cajole him into forgiveness the way it had been in their childhood. And truly, it wasn’t even his fault! It was just the relentless march of time…….he grew up, he had to go away.

Those 6 years between them had weighed heavy on the younger boy. He had felt almost insulted by the fact that despite his intelligence and desires, his physical age could allow the world to separate him from his Mycroft.

And that Mycroft---his all- knowing, omniscient, perfect Mycroft would ALLOW that to happen!

That is what had hurt him even more, twisting his disappointment, layering it with a sense of betrayal, until in his imagination it was all actually Mycroft’s fault.

The first year apart had been spent in a state of throbbing rage inside his head. He had turned even more anti- social, got into fights almost every day in school until Mummy finally decided to keep him home and teach him herself or with tutors.

To no one’s surprise he was years ahead of his peers and this system had suited them all well.

By the second year Sherlock had calmed down enough to realize that the throb of anger had been replaced by the dull ache of loneliness.

Mummy loved him and was brilliant in her own fashion. Father was kind and helpful and there for him in his own quiet way. But no one in this world could soothe his soul the way Mycroft could. No one who was able to answer the un-asked question. No one in front of whom he could be himself.

No one else made him feel safe and wanted.

No one else.

Ever.

.

.

By the third year of their separation Sherlock still avoided talking to Mycroft whenever he came home for a brief holiday but at least he would come down and look at him now instead of hiding away.

And then two years later Mycroft came back properly grown up.

He had lost weight, that lovely soft face and pudgy belly was gone, the puppy fat had melted away. What was left was a poised, self- assured young man, with clear and confident eyes, elegant demeanour and clothing as smart as he could afford.

None of this would have mattered a whit to Sherlock if it that body didn’t also house the brain and heart of his My.

His life, his universe, his everything.

Sherlock fell in love without even recognizing what had happened.

.

.

That was the year he himself had finally had to go to school and ‘learn social skills’ according to Dr. Bell.

 _Tedious_. _Boring. Hateful._

But during lunch one day he had heard someone giggle and tell her friend that she couldn’t stop thinking about that boy and wanted to look at him all the time and wanted him to look at her all the time and how it made her ache when he didn’t look at her and how it made her feel giddy and reckless and bubbly and anxious when he did and she thought she was in love.

Sherlock stood there like he had been struck by lightning.

_This was ….was it?! He was in love with Mycroft???_

_Yes of course he was!!_

But……Mummy’s voice spoke inside his head, _Sherlock dear there are rules which we need to follow. They are there for a reason._

 _Well most of them anyway_ she would concede with a sigh.

Sherlock decided this was one of those things which may have rules but he wasn’t going to follow.

.

.

That year Mycroft had also been left breathless at the sight of the young Adonis who was looking at him from the top of the stairs when he had gone home.

He had met hundreds of people since he left home. Boys, girls, men, women, of all varieties of beauty and intelligence and sense of humour and fun. No one had felt right. No one had seemed worth the effort.

No one had felt like The One.

Now he knew why.

This. Here. In front of him. Was The One.

The love of his life.

And he couldn’t have him….

Of all the 7 billion people on this planet and he had to go and fall for the one person he could never have.


	7. Soul meets soul on lovers' lips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frankenstein. The story of a forbidden act against nature. Of a man who had cobbled together and created a living being in his own image. And when that creature had demanded to be loved, the man was frightened and had eventually destroyed his creation.

That night when Mycroft went into the movie room, it seemed to have been untouched since the last time he was here and he switched on the projector to continue watching Frankenstein’s Monster.

The story of a forbidden act against nature, of a man who had tried to play God. Of a man who had cobbled together and created a living being in his own image. And when that creature had demanded to be loved, the man was frightened and had eventually destroyed his creation.

Burnt the heart out of him.

Mycroft watched the movie for a while, half his brain waiting all the time for a sound, a breath, a sign….

But he was tired and sleepy and unbidden his eyes had closed for just a minute……… or was it a bit longer?

And when he opened them, a breathtakingly beautiful young man, an angel, was kneeling on the floor in front of him, looking at him with such desperate longing in his eyes that it was all the older one could do to stop himself from weeping in ecstasy like a pilgrim at a divine revelation.

Mycroft closed his eyes again, convinced that this was his constant dream brought forth to his waking mind by the many glasses of wine. He choked back a sob and sent up a prayer, to whom he knew not.

When he opened his eyes one more time, Sherlock was still kneeling on the floor, in silent invitation. Mycroft hesitated and Sherlock inched closer.

Finally Mycroft gave in and slid down to sit against the sofa. Sherlock immediately crawled into the familiar space and Mycroft had settled him between his legs, back against his chest and had hugged him from behind.

.

.

Sherlock had melted into that embrace and arched his neck backwards to find Mycroft’s lips and it had been the most exquisite moment of surrender.

If the world would have ended at that moment both young men would have gone willingly to retain this perfection forever.

.

.

There were Mycroft’s lips, tantalizingly close, just what he needed to anchor himself to this life where the sounds and lights were too much and everyone was an idiot.

There were Mycroft’s eyes that could look into his soul and know who he was.

There was the serene face that had helped him sleep on those nights when the monsters were not just under his bed but inside his head.

There were his hands that circled him like a fortress of steel and stone that would keep him safe no matter if it was the apocalypse.

And these lips would say his name, soft as a prayer…. _Lock…._ and he would say in worship…. _My_.

He kissed him then. Feather light but clearly intentional.

‘No one else.’ He whispered.

There was a time when Mycroft would have understood, and interpreted. Perhaps even anticipated. But it had been a while since they had been close.

Sherlock had cut him off in retaliation to his leaving for University. Mycroft had entreated and even begged to explain that this was not an abandonment, but that is exactly how it had felt to the brother he left behind. And that brother was stubborn enough and angry enough to want to punish him back.

So Mycroft really didn’t know if ‘No one else’ was a question or a declaration or even a vow.

His brain was not capable of functioning even at a basic level at that moment, let alone optimally. He could feel Sherlock’s breath ghosting over his lips and he leaned forward gently and languidly as though heavy from a hypnotic dream.

It all seemed surreal.

The movie went on showing and Frankenstein was listening to his creation tell him that all he wanted was to be loved.

The room was filled with moving shadows and light, echoes of sounds, suggestion and sub text….. but all Mycroft could sense was this warm glorious body wedged into his, those beautiful eyes, like captured galaxies, looking into his own and those soft satin lips submitting to his in sweet rapture.

The sensory overload after the years of craving was just too much to allow rational thought. All the old memories and feelings and longings bubbled over like a volcano while also creating new desires, transmuted and sublimated.

It was like magic arisen from the deepest recesses of his mind.

Dark magic. Anti- matter. A Black Hole.

Forces against which he felt powerless. Swept away on a tiny raft in an ocean of overwhelming want.

A word rose unbidden from the recesses of his mind. 

‘Blud’ said Mycroft in his intoxication as he leaned in and sucked on Sherlock’s lower lip delicately, one trembling hand cupping his cheek while the other gently unbuttoned his shirt and slid in. 

At the touch of his hand on his skin, the sigh that escaped Sherlock was that of a warrior returning home and having cool balm poured on his wounds. It was the sigh of a person roaming the desert who has found an oasis.

It was the sigh of a lost angel who has found his way back to heaven.

Mycroft swallowed that sigh and the next one and then the moans.

And as the movie went on playing and Frankenstein set fire to his monster, the two brothers consummated their love in the sweep of the shadows and light as the world around them slept in innocent ignorance.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soul meets soul on lovers' lips. Percy Bysshe Shelly. Prometheus Unbound


	8. Poison drips from the forbidden fruit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft wakes up and in the struggle of heart over brain...guess who wins?

Somewhere in the cold hours before dawn Mycroft had woken to a feeling of stark and incredulous horror at what he had done and had wanted to leave home early before anyone else could stop him and ask any questions. He could not remember how they had got there but they were both on the bed in Mycroft’s room and Sherlock was sleeping all over him.

At the slightest movement from Mycroft he opened his eyes slowly. Even through half open eyes, the gaze he bestowed on Mycroft was enough to make him feel as though enveloped in molten lava.

Before he could move in any way, his next breath was stolen from him as Sherlock held his face in both his hands and kissed him, slowly, almost languidly, his tongue slipping inside even as Mycroft attempted half-heartedly to push him away with a hand pressed against his chest.

Sherlock held that hand in his own and linked their fingers together as he pulled them closer still, smiling against the kiss. 

Mycroft could almost hear his thoughts. _Mine. Mine. Mine._

Mycroft realized that he was still trembling but no longer just with apprehension but more so with desire.

This was magic and enchantments and all kinds of divine. This was rapture. This was ecstasy. This was euphoria. This was the song of angels and the gates of heaven and this was the purpose of his very existence and all he wanted to do for the rest of his life was to worship at the altar of this new god and never let go of this embrace.

It was too much and not nearly enough. He wanted….. he wanted so much that it seemed beyond the grasp of even his Mind Palace. The need to merge to explode to dance to annihilate himself….oh but it was madness. Mycroft felt as though he was on the edge of an abyss but also in the deepest ocean. He was floating in the skies and also tethered to the stars.

He wanted Sherlock to live inside his rib cage next to his heart. He wanted to cover him like a coat. He wanted to….

“STOP Sherlock! Stop it. Please!” Mycroft said hoarsely, breaking away from him, barely able to catch his breath.

Sherlock looked at him, arms around his waist, swollen lips just a tilt of a head away and asked, “Do you really want me to stop?”

Mycroft took a shaky breath and found that he no longer had the strength to say yes nor the courage to say no, so once again, he simply closed his eyes.

That was the second mistake.

.

.

Whenever he thought of that night in later years, (and he thought of it often) it felt like a dream.

Like diving into a surreal painting, or feeling all the notes of an orchestra swimming in his blood. It felt simultaneously divine and terrifying. 

He understood the source of all art and poetry and everything was love. He felt the beginning of the universe and the death of the Sun.

He had never imagined that his body was capable of experiencing so much pleasure nor that being able to offer such pleasure in return to a lover could make his heart almost burst with joy.

What was the meaning of life but to love?

He felt as though he was floating on an ocean of enchantment and if he had been asked right then if it was night or day or up or down, he would have probably just smiled and asked whether it mattered anymore?

.

.

Oh but it mattered. It mattered so much!!

He woke up again some hours later, just before dawn, instinctively holding closer the warm body tangled up with his, before he slowly remembered what had happened and his world came crashing around his ears.

_It had not been a dream!_

He looked down to see Sherlock fast asleep beside him, both of them wearing only the sheets that covered them.

His mouth was instantly dry with fear and his heart was hammering fit to escape his ribcage.

_What had they done?? What had HE done??! How could he have allowed this to happen??_

Surely, there was a special place in hell for someone like him.

He had allowed his heart to control his brain and this was going to devastate everyone.

.

.

Sherlock woke up again as he tried to leave the bed and looked up at him sleepy soft with such a tender smile on his face that Mycroft wished for the thousandth time since the earlier evening that he was not his brother.

He wished that this sublime and addictive experience had not been something illegal, criminal, inappropriate, immoral and every possible sin from every possible angle. That he had had the strength to say no last night because now it was going to be infinitely more difficult if it was even still possible.

It had to be possible. This simply could not go on. Everyone is allowed one mistake in life. Even it is one of cosmic proportions.

This was a mistake. It would not be repeated. Not if Mycroft could help it.

.

.

“Sherlock,” he started to say. He stopped to remind himself to breathe when his brother gave him a dazzling smile. “Sherlock, we have always been close. Very close. Too close some might say.” He shrugged. “But we are older now ……and I know you don’t have many close friends. That’s ok. Neither do I. But you seem to have developed some feelings for me or rather for your memory of me while I have been away. Can we please pretend this never happened? This was a mistake. It can never happen again. You know that I would do anything for your happiness and that is why I am holding back. If things go wrong I could not bear to have you hate me.” He paused. “Do you understand what I am saying?”

_Besides the fact that I am your older brother for heaven’s sake and it’s illegal as well as wrong on so many levels and I am currently equally desperate to have you and hold you and you have no idea what it is taking for me to undertake this negotiation and keep you away………_

Even now when he remembered that electric night, he wondered how he had found the strength and the courage and the sheer tenacity to stay away and keep Sherlock away when every fibre of his being was asking for exactly the opposite.

Had he made the right decision?

Or had that been the final mistake?


	9. Burning souls of the living dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft realizes that a world without Sherlock is not one worth living in. No matter what the price.

Sherlock certainly thought it was a mistake.

He had argued-- _Since when do the rules matter to us Mycie?!_

He had accused-- _You know you want this as much as I do_.

He had attacked. _Don’t you love me? Liar. I hate you._

He had even begged-- _Please Mycie. I can’t do this without you. I can’t be without you._

He had pleaded _. There is so much noise in my brain. You can make it quiet Mycie._

He had threatened _. If I can’t have you I won’t have anybody._

He had finally looked at him with eye full of such pain of betrayal that Mycroft still had nightmares where those eyes followed him around.

_It WASN’T a mistake Mycie. You KNOW that._

_._

_._

Sherlock had struggled through two years of college, undoubtedly the most brilliant student they had ever had but equally the most incapable of submitting to any routine or rules.

_He still doesn’t have any friends Mycie._

_He is so unhappy._

_He hardly talks to us anymore._

Finally Mycroft had been forced to tell his mother that Sherlock was grown up and an adult and needed to fight his own demons.

“Oh I know that son, but promise me that you will keep an eye on him. For me. Keep him safe. That’s all I ask.”

“Yes Mummy.” Mycroft had promised even as his conscience reminded him that he probably needed to keep Sherlock safe from himself.

.

.

His own intense craving had found relief in food. Mostly sweets. He ate when he missed Sherlock. He ate when he felt guilty about what had happened. He ate when he craved his presence. He ate when he wanted to punish himself. He ate when he was ashamed. He ate when he was conflicted.

As he was expanding physically, he was chaining himself up emotionally. Brick by brick. He would never again allow himself to be a slave to his emotions.

 _Alone protects us. Caring is not an advantage._ Those who run cults do understand human psychology. When you say something often enough, it does seem to become the truth. The whole truth and nothing but the truth.

He indulged himself with the best of art and poetry and wore bespoke suits cut from the finest cloth. Unknowingly always seeking out everything that could bring back even a whisper of that enchantment and sublimation of the finest desires of that magical night.

.

.

It was Christmas once again and Mycroft had managed to avoid going home despite all Mummy’s efforts.

He had spent the day alone in his small flat in London, attempting to get drunk in order to forget. When that hadn’t worked he had decided, in a rage against himself, to do something that would erase that memory from his brain for good.

_This madness had to stop!_

He could not spent the rest of his life consumed by a horrible poisonous mixture of guilt and desire. He had to move on.

He needed to erase that memory by creating a new one to overlay it.

So, in a fit of desperation and abysmal bad judgement he had gone to the nearest pub, found someone who didn’t utterly repulse him and had had frantic and frankly quite un –enjoyable sex.

Then he had done it again the next evening and the next and the next, for ten days in a row.

He was filled with self-loathing and disgust and he felt like a monster. But then he had created this monster himself after all. So he would have to be the one to kill it. With his bare hands. 

He was waging a war against himself and taking no prisoners.

.

.

On 6th January as he stumbled back to his flat, reeking of the cloying after- shave of the man he had had sex with, the smoke and the alcohol from the evening in the pub clinging to him, he had been shocked into a bleary surprise when he saw Sherlock waiting for him inside.

Sherlock had a hesitant expression on his face that could have been a smile, a negotiation, an offer…… something…anything.

But he took one look at Mycroft and his expression changed into a riot of outrage, anger, disbelief, sorrow and despair.

Mycroft could barely keep track of them as they flitted on his beautiful brother’s angelic face.

“No one else.” Sherlock had whispered hoarsely and walked out, the door swinging wide open with the force of his fury and Mycroft almost choked as he felt every ounce of oxygen leave the room too.

When his legs gave way, he sat on his sofa and finally wept. Wept rivers of tears that ran through the ashes of his burnt heart.

.

.

For the next three years Mycroft had no one else.

He worked like he was possessed. He read, he travelled, he breathed, he slept. He perfected that cold thin smile and the dignified body language that made sure everyone kept their distance.

He knew they called him the Iceman.

_Would they ever guess at the cauldron bubbling inside his heart, always wondering if he will ever be forgiven? Would they ever imagine the abyss of passion which threatened to swallow him whole?_

.

.

Then one day he got a call.

It was Christmas Eve once again. His thoughts had been full of that Christmas from years ago. Not that he needed the excuse of the festival to remember it. It was branded into his very soul.

Like the stigmata of the sinners of yore. Bleeding open wounds weeping at dark skies.

Mummy had told him that Sherlock had moved to London earlier that year. But there had been no contact from his brother and he had given his mother empty promises to look after him. He didn’t even know where Sherlock was and he still didn’t have enough resources at his disposal to be able to track him discreetly. Although he had wild and intense fantasies in his dreams of how they would finally meet, those were buried deep into his sleeping mind and while awake, he had no desire to be found by Sherlock either and had kept a wary distance.

“Mycroft Holmes.” He had said into his phone that day.

“Mr. Holmes? Sergeant Gregory Lestrade here.” Said a deep yet gentle voice. “Can you come to Jupiter Ward in UCH? Your brother Sherlock has been admitted and you are listed as his next of kin.”

Mycroft barely remembered what he did next and how he reached the hospital.

His blood was pounding in his ears. His brain was in a fog. The entire city had gone grey and hazy. Of all the ways in which he had hoped and expected to find his brother, this was not one of them.

He met the kind looking man who had called him and he had found himself at Sherlock’s bedside.

That pale, ill, fragile malnourished looking man in that hospital bed… _that was his Sherlock?! His beautiful angel brother??_

He felt his knees almost give way but the cop held him firmly and guided him to a chair.

He was speaking to Mycroft softly, clearly. “I take it you didn’t know about his drug history? I found him some months ago and a few times since but this time he seems to have overdosed.” He paused. “Accidentally I think.”

 _What did he mean by that??_ Mycroft looked at him wide- eyed. _He was suggesting that his brother could have attempted to kill himself?!_

He knew at that very moment that there was nothing he would not do to make sure this never happened again. Mycroft decided that they were done with punishing themselves and each other. The world could burn and all their rules could become dust but there was no way he would let Sherlock suffer like this anymore.

Right now Sherlock was here. He was breathing. The world could keep on turning. The sun was allowed to rise tomorrow.

So he visited every day and sat by him and held his hand and spoke to him. On the third day when Sherlock woke up, he had looked at him.

But as soon as he recognized Mycroft, it was like a shutter came down behind his eyes and he started to withdraw his hand.

Mycroft stopped him and held it in both his, lifted it to his lips and offered a soft kiss on it.

When Sherlock looked at him in confusion, Mycroft told him firmly. “No one else. Ever.”


	10. From black lips pour the ashes of our love songs

And so it was that the most forbidden of all love stories was re-kindled.

However, as Mycroft rose higher and higher in his chosen career, it was almost impossible for them to be seen together in any way that would raise suspicion. He did his utmost to persuade Sherlock to join the same line of work so that they could have official reasons to be together.

But Sherlock, who had wanted to be a pirate as a child was simply not cut out for the smooth diplomacy and intrigue that came so easily to Mycroft. Where Mycroft saw danger lurking in every shadow near his beloved, Sherlock saw adventure. Where Mycroft urged caution, Sherlock sought excitement.

As Sherlock struggled to fight the demons inside his head Mycroft’s heart felt as fragile as glass at every mission when he had to leave London and every heartbeat reminded him of the distance from the one who held his heart in his pale hands.

Despite being a logical rational atheist he sent up prayers to every god and goddess new and old to watch over his brother, his lover, his everything…..and keep those pale hands away from the needle.

For he knew as sure as night followed day that the end of Sherlock Holmes was the end of Mycroft too.

The heavens seemed to have heard his prayers for now and the man who had rescued Sherlock often times before, stood guard at the gates of hell once again. Sergeant Gregory Lestrade of Scotland Yard offered Sherlock some work to occupy his overactive brain and he held him to the promise of keeping himself clean as he did so.

As Mycroft saw the guardian angel step in he was able to feel a burden roll off his chest and as Sherlock grew steady on his feet and found himself, Mycroft grew steady in his own job and found more happiness than he had ever imagined possible.

Sherlock continued however to stay in the hovel he had chosen as his rebellion against the rules of society which would forbid him from being with the man he loved. Mycroft’s travels were reducing slowly but surely as he became more and more indispensable and needed to be in London, the throbbing heart of the global power empires even now.

But he still travelled often enough that he could meet Sherlock barely twice or three times in a month. These trysts were often more frantic and passionate than nurturing and fulfilling.

Since he was in denial , he didn’t notice the danger as it crept up on them slowly, like a corrosive acid burning away the edges of a precious love letter.

Loneliness is the silent killer and for someone like Sherlock whose brain moved at such high speeds, the long silences and distances between them seemed even longer. He turned sullen and was clearly miserable.

Mycroft felt trapped, unable to negotiate time away from an increasingly demanding and challenging job, and an incandescent and all- consuming lover.

And then one day, there was a misunderstanding. A lover’s quarrel that escalated beyond his control.

Mycroft had been trying to get Sherlock to move into a better flat and Gregory Lestrade, who had now become a Detective Inspector had found a landlady in the heart of London who was willing to let out rooms. Sherlock was dragging his feet and every time the topic was brought up he would accuse Mycroft of not wanting him in his life in the first place.

Mycroft had returned from a difficult and painful mission. He had seen men die for Queen and country. He had killed a few himself. Men who were younger than his brother. He was weary to the bone and almost keeling over with exhaustion.

But even before he stepped into the place he called his home, he had gone to visit where his heart was. And found it in a dirty cold hovel that looked even seedier than it had when he last visited. If such a thing were possible.

He felt a deep sense of frustration. _Such a brilliant brain and such little sense of self-preservation?_

And he felt something like a betrayal. _If not for his own self, why couldn’t he take better care for the sake of his big brother? The man who loved him beyond all reason and beyond all limits? Did his love mean so little to Sherlock that he could not bother?_

Anger born of frustration met resentment born of loneliness and despair.

Harsh words were exchanged.

“Why don’t you just say it Mycroft? You are ashamed of me. That’s it. I am not respectable enough for you am I? Your junkie lover, a kept man. You use the excuse of me being your brother for not being seen together in public but tell me the truth, you wouldn’t want to be seen with me anyway would you? I am not good enough for you. Never have been. Let me free you from this burden once and for all Mycroft Holmes. Go away. Find someone else who is more deserving of you and your posh sophistication. Hold hands with him in public. Take him out for dinners. Feed him cake. Grow old and fat together.”

Mycroft was speechless and hurt and angered by this.

Even his legendary infinite patience had been worn thin by the vagaries of the mission and while one part of him wanted to just hold Sherlock and soothe him and reassure him and make love to him, one part wanted to just find a place where he could sleep in peace and return to battle another day.

So he had turned around and left.

.

.

Sherlock did not talk to him. Mycroft stayed away and stayed silent for two days with the greatest of difficulties. He woke up every day determined that that would be the day he would go and meet Sherlock. He picked up his phone to text him three times every day and kept the phone down.

On the third day he broke.

He texted him { _Sherlock please forgive me. I only want what is best for you. Can we meet today?}_

There was no reply.

He waited for two agonizing hours and then texted him again. { _I love you_.}

When there was still no reply he wrapped up his meeting with the Commonwealth Heads of State and went to Montague Street, and climbed up the stairs to Sherlock’s flat.

He was imagining Sherlock’s reaction as he would pretend to not care but then he would persuade him and kiss him, softly and make him see reason, and maybe they would….but his train of thoughts came to a screeching halt when he saw the door to the flat open and someone moving furniture in and out.

It was a young couple moving in and getting some paint work done.

He just stood there and stared for half a minute and then frantically dialed Gregory Lestrade’s number.

Before he could say hello Lestrade said, “Don’t worry, he moved to the Baker Street flat.”

Mycroft let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. His heart beat calmed down and he said “Thank you.”

“Yeah, sure. He just refused to let me tell you. Thought he wanted to surprise you but then I gathered there had been some quarrel between you two. The landlady is known to me. He is going to look for a flatmate to share the rent. Maybe give him a couple of days and then you can drop in to check it out?”

“Sure. I will do that. Thank you again Gregory.”

However, before he could find a way to drop in and make amends, he found himself ‘kidnapping’ a man Sherlock seemed to have let into his life without any logical reason whatsoever.

An ex-Army doctor, with a limp and an unlicensed gun.


	11. The hollow beating of a broken heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft finds himself pushed aside by an unexpected rival for Sherlock's attention

Mycroft was still reeling from what had happened-- all in the span of 24 hours.

He had found this man to be stubborn and annoying and difficult to intimidate despite all the cloak and dagger tricks he had pulled. He wondered if he was some kind of enemy agent and was shocked at how randomly Sherlock had decided to trust him.

He had managed to avoid letting this Dr. John Watson know who he was but somehow he was left with the strange feeling that he had also not really figured out who this limping man was. More importantly who he was to Sherlock.

He had played mysterious. “When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet, hence this place.”

He had tried being condescending in order to goad him “Ah, yes. The bravery of the soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don’t you think?”

He had tried being menacing. _“_ What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”

John had sounded genuinely surprised. “I don’t have one.” He had said. “I barely know him. I met him ..... yesterday.”

  
Mycroft had snapped back. “Mm, and since yesterday you’ve moved in with him and now you’re solving crimes together. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?”

When had asked John if he planned to continue his association with Sherlock the man had actually countered by saying it was none of your business.

For the first time that day Mycroft had felt something more than annoyance. He had felt a small cold pit of fear opening up inside his chest.

None of his business.

Sherlock was none of his business.

_Could that be possible??!_

He managed to control his panic and asked the doctor if he would be willing to take some money to provide him with information about what Sherlock is up to. He even confessed that he worried about him. Constantly. But John was not interested.

Myroft had used up all the weapons in his arsenal by that point and had to revert to increasing surveillance on his incorrigible brother.

His lover.

Maybe not that any more.

Mycroft fought the rising panic and almost had a stroke later that day when he realized that Sherlock had been about to let himself die by taking that monstrously stupid pill from Jeff Hope. But all he could do was confront him as icily as possible in the middle of the large crowd that had gathered at the crime scene. It was obvious to him right away that the ex-Army doctor had saved Sherlock’s life but Mycroft felt too bitter to even thank him properly.

It felt like a slowly rising tornado had swept up the pieces of his life and was busy tossing them around willy-nilly and out of his control.

When Sherlock had noticed he had greeted him with hostility as expected. “What are you doing here?”

Mycroft tried to remind Sherlock. “As ever, I’m concerned about you.”

Sherlock said “Yes, I’ve been hearing about your ‘concern.’

Mycroft tried once again to soften his stance. “Always so aggressive. Did it never occur to you that you and I belong on the same side?”

Sherlock did not give in. “Oddly enough, no!”

He then introduced him to John as ‘My brother’ which sent a chill down Mycroft’s spine and shook him enough to hardly react when Sherlock asked him he was putting on weight again. He felt like bystander or an extra in a badly written play which left him still standing centre stage as the hero and his new side kick exited from the main door.

He could hear Sherlock offering to guide John to the nearest Chinese place. Mycroft’s insides were twisting in sharp pain by now. He had never been able to casually stroll down the street with Sherlock or take him out on a ‘date’. He never would be able to.

Maybe it was time to step back and let go. He felt faint even as he thought these things. It was as though he was being asked to give up on oxygen or let go of the beating of his heart.

All he could do was acidly instruct Anthea to step up the surveillance.

Grade Three Active.

.

.

As Mycroft rode back in his silent black car he could hear the sound of heartbreak surround him.

It was softer than a whisper of a flake of glowing ash falling on the cool sand and louder than a supernova explosion.

It was slower than a drop of amber inching its way down an ancient tree and trapping his life in this moment forever.

It was faster than a train wreck at the speed of light.

It was cleaner than a scalpel to the wrist, a fine red line opening the door to endless sleep and messier than a dirty bomb exploding inside a crowded stadium.

It was lighter than a kite whose string has been cut and it soars up, up and away with no one to hold it back.

It was heavier than a mountain that is holding back a dam.

It was the branding of every word he had ever spoke to him written all over every cell in his body.

.

.

“No one else.” Mycroft whispered to himself and wondered when that vow would be broken by his other half.


	12. Burn the heart out of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having bitten the forbidden fruit, the snake of doubt kept hissing in Sherlock's ear.

Sherlock wanted to punish Mycroft. Yes. And he also wanted to push him away.

He wanted to burn the heart out of him.

He wanted to make sure that his older brother…his lover…knew that it is over so that he could be free to move on.

Sherlock had always known that Mycroft was his better half. Better in every possible way. More intelligent of course but also more thoughtful, more refined, more disciplined, more adaptable, more diplomatic. More loving. Oh so much more loving.

Whatever Sherlock had imagine their relationship would be like, Mycroft had given him far more. He had once again become his best friend and truly his significant other. It was as though the years in between had never happened.

Sherlock had spent most of those missing years in a dark funk inside his own head and then in the sweet addictive agony of drugs because after that kiss nothing in the real world could hold his attention any more. Nothing seemed worth it if he couldn’t have more of those kisses. He had never imagined he could get addicted to kissing but that one night had been his undoing. He dreamt of it when awake and yearned for it in his dreams. He didn’t care about what happened to him because after knowing that kiss, nothing else mattered.

He had craved Mycroft with every cell in his body. He felt his blood weeping his name. He felt his tears burn down his face. He could feel every breath mourn the loss of his other half. He could feel his very soul twist in agony at the distance from its mate.

And then that terrible wonderful day, Mycroft had finally given in. But Sherlock knew with a grim certainty that Mycroft would have resisted and denied them his whole life if he had not seen Sherlock almost on his death bed.

Sherlock knew that it was utterly unfair to resent Mycroft for having held back and denied them this for all those years in the first place but then as soon as he actually had this he started feeling guilty for having pushed Mycroft into something he had not been willing to accept.

He knew that Mycroft could do better for himself. So much better. And even that thought created a churning in his gut and a constriction in his lungs.

No one else. Never anyone else.

But the reality was cruel as always and those long hours and days and often weeks apart tore into his peace of mind. It was not that he worried about Mycroft being in the company of other like- minded sophisticated diplomats but simply that he just missed him so much. SO much. He longed for him. He craved his presence, his smile, his kisses, his wit. He missed having Mycroft in the bed to curl around. He missed having those elegant powerful hands gently ruffle through his curls and soothe him. He missed just looking at him and seeing the adoration reflected back in those eyes.

He missed being fed by him. He missed waking up lazily wrapped up in him.

He missed making love with him.

After all, how long can one sleep in the same bed so that one could inhale the lingering scent of one’s lover on the sheets? How long can one make do with wearing his old shirt instead of having his real arms around you? How long can one play a violin without an adoring audience of one? How often can one make two cups of tea and drink one alone as the other cup goes cold and unclaimed day after day?

How long can one solve a murder or even chase a serial killer as a substitute for the rapture and delight of being with one’s true love?

He wondered if this how it would be till the end of their days.

Never a single moment of freedom to openly declare their love for each other. Not even a single moment of holding hands and walking down a park like lovers. No kisses in the street. No embracing at a dinner. No ceremonies, no celebrations, no honouring of this relationship in anyone’s eyes.

This forbidden love would forever have to be lived out in the dark shadows and hidden dungeons of life. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the love they were seeking would be the death of their creators. This romance had been doomed from the start.

Having bitten the forbidden fruit, the snake of doubt kept hissing in his ear.

_Mycroft was right to deny you this. He is always right. You should have listened._

_Now some day he is going to resent you for this._ _You are already a fallen man, an addict, jobless and not respectable. Some day he will find someone else more worthy. Someone who truly deserves him unlike you._

_Then he will walk out and what will become of you?_

_Or even worse, he will never walk out and stay with you like the mad woman in his attic and never be able to find happiness. He will be tied down to you out of obligation and duty and you will always come second to his Work._

_He is married to his Work and you will always be his dirty secret._

Hours upon hours and days upon days of this shaming monologue inside his head and that day he had finally crossed a line.

.

.

So he had called Greg who had taken him to the new flat where he had met the landlady and taken the rooms.

As fate would have it, he had found a flatmate too within a couple of days. He needed to start a new chapter in his life. Find a way to keep living without Mycroft in it.

He had to stay away from Mycroft because he knew his brother so well. He knew that Mycroft would never leave him. And Mycroft deserved better than that.

It had been far more difficult than he had expected and when he had seen Mycroft at the crime scene that day he had almost been tempted to go as close as he possibly could but had resisted. He had dug his hands into his pockets and shuttered off his emotions and been pointedly aggressive and rude to him. Then he had taken off with John Watson without a backward glance.

He knew that if he had allowed Mycroft to make proper eye contact, he would have realized at once that Sherlock had been willing to take that capsule from Jeff Hope not just because he could never resist a puzzle but because he had a glimmer of an escape. From this world.

From this painful existence where Mycroft could not be his and he could bear to be without him.


	13. Here be Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock knows they are running out of time. The countdown has begin and the rules of the Game have been changed by Jim Moriarty.

As the days of separation went by he could see Mycroft trying hard to get him back. All those random case he got for him, the time he found to drop in at Baker Street, the way he tried to get to know John (almost as though he was his rival for Sherlock’s affection!)

Sherlock resolutely kept his distance and mocked Mycroft and taunted him and annoyed him and led him on to believe that his relationship with John was something deeper.

He used his access cards without permission and turned up at the Palace in his bedsheet. He did whatever he could do to finally make Mycroft give up on him.

But all he got from Mycroft was an expression of infinite sadness in his eyes even when he was exasperated. All he got was increased surveillance and more patience.

It was as though Mycroft had decided to wait out while Sherlock was going through a ‘phase’.

Sherlock did not know whether to be pleased or frustrated at this tenacious behaviour.

He knew that if it became a battle of wills then Mycroft would win hands down. Every time.

So Sherlock needed to do something else. Something bigger.

He played with fire by flirting with Irene in front of Mycroft. He was sure that for the first time since their separation he saw some disturbance in Mycroft’s carefully crafted expressions.

But alas, the Game was a fail because in his eagerness to push Mycroft away he had misjudged badly and revealed a secret to the enemy. After Irene had gone and he realized the consequences of what had just happened, his heart sank.

_What had he done?!_

He had put Mycroft in danger. The one person on this planet for whom he could have given up his own worthless life. He had gone and made his life worse.

Then in the days to come as the web spun by Moriarty had become a noose around his neck he had finally been forced to ask Mycroft for his help. Something big was coming and they needed to be the two of them against the world. There was no other way. There was never another way.

He had been trying to punish Mycroft for the sin of having loved him but the torment was being felt by both. 

That day Sherlock stood by the window on Baker Street and watched Mycroft leave. The sight of Mycroft walking away from him always opened up a pit of misery in his gut. As the headlights of the cars on the street cast their moving shadows on his face and he saw Mycroft get into his car and be driven away, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

He decided he could not fight this anymore.

.

.

Like a horror noir film he could see the events of the recent weeks move in front of his mind’s eye like a badly edited home video. Carl Powers shoes. Swipe forward. The serial suicides. Swipe forward. Then the frames start to move faster and faster……..….. the pool, the Tower of London break-in, I owe you.

The frames were erratic, the angles crazed, the web spinning around him with one spider sitting at the centre of the web. Eventually all the frames blurred into one image.

Jim Moriarty.

It was time for Sherlock to take the Game to him. 

He had been pulled into a playground to solve a puzzle but it had turned into a battlefield instead. The end game was near and he was finished.

Or at least he needed to provide the illusion of being finished.

Done. Over with. Finit. The End.

His world was on fire and he needed to be dead.

And then he needed to be convincingly mourned.

So he eventually gave in and met Mycroft. That led to a series of furious sessions at the Diogenes Club. Furious because he could see only one way to play it and Mycroft simply could not allow him to die, even if it was fake. 

“Surely we can find a better way out Sherlock. Please. We can hunt Moriarty down with combined forces. Let me talk to the Inspector at least.”

“No!” Sherlock had almost yelled at him. “You will not bring Gregory into this. It will just put him in danger and he will never allow me to go through with this.”

“With good reason don’t you think?” Mycroft murmured.

“And neither will John.”

Mycroft’s eyes turned cold at that. He did not care what John thought or did or did not do. But Sherlock reminded him. “He will mourn me in a way that will convince everyone that I am dead.”

“Yes. I am sure he will.” Mycroft replied acidly.

Sherlock hesitated too long to correct him and the moment was gone. Mycroft stood up and left. Despite his complete faith in Mycroft he knew that he was only human after all, as were all those who worked for him. There was no margin of error in this plan, so if something went wrong, this would be it. The end.

He had to make things better with Mycroft before that. They were running out of time for real now.

.

.

Lightening flashed and briefly illuminated two profiles inside the room.

One that anyone in the country would have recognized from the front pages, even without the hat and one that no one would have recognized because he always moved in the shadows and silences.

The rain pelted on the roof of the cabin they had rented outside the city. The inside was filled with the smell of smoke and leather layered in with their own sweat and aftershave. 

They had met to discuss and strategize for the Fall and to be able to finalize all the 13 scenarios without any disturbance. But once the sun had gone down, neither had bothered to switch on any lights. They had smoked in silence, the tips of the cigarettes the only illumination for those minutes.

One had been trying to quit and one of them was convinced that in fact he had, but today he needed this. They both needed this.

One of them had waited with the patience of a mountain. He had understood the guilt and sheer misery which had caused the break in their relationship. He felt guilty for having given in because he always knew it would be difficult. He also knew that the other man had neither the patience nor the temperament for lying low and living in shadows. 

But then a lifetime of building walls and ramparts and turrets and moats had vanished into thin air with the Kiss and thank heavens for that. It felt as though his life was divided into three parts. Before they were together, while they were together and after they were no longer together. They say it was better to have loved and lost….but how often could he lose and still manage to live on?

He was not even sure if he still had it or it was still lost……when Sherlock stood up and came over and pulled him up to stand. Then he leaned in till their foreheads touched. It was almost like a gesture of blessing and gratitude and absolution that the other one found so heartbreakingly beautiful.

Alone protects us, he used to say, but now he knew that he had never really been alone. They were so entwined that the separation was slowly killing them both. 

Their hands found each other’s softs spots and roamed everywhere in a heady mixture of tenderness and possessiveness, one of them always holding hard enough to hurt and leave bruises while the other one always more caring and protective, even in these moments of lust driven passion.

The thick soft slip and slide of a tie being loosened was followed by the susurration of a silk shirt falling to the floor. The soft smush of a crushed T shirt being flung away soon after.

There were moans as their lips sealed the covenant. One pushing for more, as always, impatient, demanding and the other one gentle, caressing, even protecting, till finally driven mad by hunger and desire. Then it was difficult to say where one ended and the other began and if one really didn’t need air after all and could live only on love.

The bed creaked as two hungry bodies fell down upon it, moving and rolling against each other.

Hoarse voices called out, loud and unchecked in this private space where no one could hear them.

“Mine. Mine. Oh god….. _Sherlock…”_

“Oh yes……My….please…. _Mycie_ ……” followed by a shudder and a tremor and blissful silence.

The rain continued to drum on the roof, sounding even louder now that their hearts had stopped pounding in their ears.

Later as they slept tangled in sheets and each other’s limbs and memories and sighs, one of them had said ‘I love you’ in a whisper and the other one had turned away and closed his eyes to stop the tears from falling.

They had to spend the next two years apart.

_How was he going to manage that now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some parts have been re-purposed from my first ever Holmescest fic 'It was a dark and stormy night.' https://archiveofourown.org/works/15761718
> 
> I still remember the tentative way I read the first ever Mycroft/Sherlock fic and the rabbit hole I tumbled down and then eventually ended up not only shipping them super hard and reading more but also writing that fic! What a journey it has been since :)


	14. In your arms redemption, in your tears resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock had a half smile even as he tumbled down from the roof of Bart's. “Catch me Mycie!” He whispered.

{Lazarus is a go} he texted and then his body fell through the air.

They say one’s life flashes in front of one’s eyes before death.

All he could see was Mycroft and himself.

As a child he had flung himself off some tree and expected his older brother to magically catch him. Mycroft had of course caught him but they had both tumbled down after that. He remembered how Mycroft had ignored his own bruises and helped Sherlock up again.

Sherlock had a half smile even as he tumbled down from the roof of Bart's. “Catch me Mycie!” He whispered.

**.**

**.**

Two years. 730 days.

Ever since he fell off the roof of St Bart’s it was as though he had never landed.

His body had been rescued by Molly and patched up and then whisked off by Mycroft.

Then he had gone tracking down Moriarty’s network and killing his minions off. His body may have been eating, drinking, smoking, resting, fighting, scarring, stabbing, throbbing, hurting, burning, shivering, living, dying…………. but it was all happening while he was still falling.

Endlessly falling. Spiralling. Limbs in disarray, arms flapping uselessly, no wings ever sprouting. Legs thrashing helplessly. Head lolling, lips open in a silent scream. Free fall.

Tumbling, rolling, spinning.

Whether he was awake or asleep it mattered little now. He was always falling.

Tumbling. Rolling. Spinning.

When he woke up from those dreams, forcing himself to muffle his screams even in the throes of a nightmare, there were never any hands close enough to reach and touch, catch and hold.

There were no hands to save him.

The nightmares were layered with the look in John’s eyes the day he fell, the look in Molly’s eyes the day he left her flat, the look in Mycroft’s eyes as he left the country. Every coloured iris guarding an abyss and a little tiny inverted image of Sherlock on all those brains, spiralling, falling further, deeper, every spin taking him closer to the bottomless deep where no one could hear him scream.

When would he finally land? Would he ever land? Or would he just spin away and soon be beyond the solar system? Would he just tumble many, many light years into the distance? And by the time the people on this planet saw the light from his reflection, he would have been long gone.

He would no longer even be alive.

Alive.

_Why was he still alive?_

Maybe that is the puzzle he should be trying to solve.

Then he would remember. He was alive because he had to get back to Mycroft. To his lover. The mastermind who had helped him die so he could live. The lover who had once again sacrificed their happiness for the greater good.

Saving John, Greg and Mrs. Hudson.

Mycroft had begged him to help him escape and make a new life elsewhere but Sherlock could be equally stubborn and had insisted on making sure that these three were safe. They had been there for him when he had wanted to die after leaving Mycroft.

Now that he had Mycroft back and was secure in his love, he would make sure they lived.

After that? Who knew?

He knew he could stay dead and no one would come looking at him.

He could slip out, turning cartwheels in the dark but if he had to escape alone? Without Mycroft by his side? He would be un-anchored, un –moored, like a kite with its strings cut. Like a wheel rolling downhill. Like a falling star on the horizon.

Running endlessly and never reaching anywhere. Falling forever and never landing. Flying so far that there was no coming back.

But maybe he would not make it back alive after all.

Baron Maupertis was a cruel and evil man and being tied up in his dungeon and starved and whipped into submission was only the first step to a certain death.

Every muscle was in agony, every part of his lung on fire. His back was a mess of blood and scabs and his hands exhausted from holding him dangling from the ceiling. But even through his exhausted and starving haze he thought he heard his lover’s voice. He knew then that this was the end. That his brain was being kind enough to let him die with the memory of Mycroft's voice in his ears.

And then his hair was being pulled to force him to look up. He looked up and blinked to get the blood and sweat out of his eyes.

He must be dying and his brain was giving up completely now. This man looked like Mycroft.

Real or not, at least he would die with the image of his lover on his retina.

Just then he blinked again. _Mycroft?!_

Then he smiled.

_No one else._


	15. We live in a perpetually burning building

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The world is violent and mercurial--it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love--love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend.  
> We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.”
> 
> Tennessee Williams

Sherlock sat there as he was being shaved.

He had been barely conscious after the daring rescue and had exchanged hardly four words with Mycroft on the way back. Now he was bathed, fed and well rested.

Mycroft was watching him. He had not said or done anything to suggest that they would pick up their relationship where they had left off before the Fall.

Sherlock knew that Mycroft would wait for him to decide. He knew now how much courage and strength it had taken for Mycroft to say no for all those years. He also knew just how much it had cost him to also say yes. He knew that Mycroft would step back again and let him decide. Two years was not a very long time but it had been intense. He knew that although he was the one on the frontline, Mycroft had probably felt the pain of every wound, heard the swishing of every whip mark and the guilt and misery in his heart would have weighed him down as much as a ten pound stone around his neck.

Mycroft would never presume that they would take this up from where they left off. He would never ask. But Sherlock knew that those two years had been nothing but a blink in the epic love story of theirs. A love that had surely been born again and again since the beginning of it all……Perhaps even before the beginning of it all. Every iteration. Every new cycle. They were matter and anti-matter, black holes and supernovas. They were twin suns. They were mountains and clouds. They were eagles and sharks and wolves and lions. Light and Darkness. Like interlocking fingers. Complete only when together.

Was it his fancy or did all those lifetimes run through his brain like a jumbled up flip book? Maybe his soul and his heart had always known this. Through every single life time from the beginning of Time and even beyond Death, they would always find each other. They would always belong to each other.

Two of them.

Always just the two of them.

No one else.

.

.

As he looked at Mycroft standing there, looking as though it was the end of days, an invisible frisson of stress obvious in the clenching of his jaw. He wondered how ridiculous it was that Mycroft could be such a genius and find a proverbial needle in the haystack but miss something so obvious staring him in the face.

There was only one decision Sherlock would ever make. It would be yes. Always yes.

But then the naughty baby brother was suddenly itching to torment his lover just a little bit more. Now that he was in front of his eyes and so alive, so warm and so close…..(not close enough!)..... he wanted to drag out the reunion just a fraction more.

He wanted to tease him to make their union even more bitter sweet. Just a little bit!

So Sherlock asked for his coat and he asked after John, noticing how Mycroft went all stiff and sharp at the query. Then he wore his coat, turned up the collar and pretended as though he was leaving to meet John.

_Poor Mycroft. Was he just going to stand there by the door and let him leave?!_

Sherlock sighed quietly. _It was time. His idiot older brother would martyr himself but not move an inch._

So he turned around and said “Thanks for everything……Blud.”

He saw Mycroft blink. He could almost hear the gears in his genius brain whirring at top speed.

As he waited for a reaction, he knew now that even if their love would have to be kept in the dark corners and shadows it was still love! No one could take that away. Their forbidden love had to be kept safe from the cruel world and if hiding it is what it took then that is what he would do.

Willingly and forever.

Then Mycroft took a step closer, still hesitant, still holding back, still unsure.

Sherlock grinned at him and moved in to seal their lips in a kiss. A kiss that had been waiting for two years. A kiss that had been waiting in the wings, fluttering in agony and now blissed out to have finally landed on these two lips.

As Mycroft gently put his arms around him, careful of his scarred back, Sherlock sighed and slipped into his safe space. His sanctuary. His refuge.

Where he belonged.

In Mycroft’s arms.

He had stopped falling now. He was in orbit. This was his Sun and the centre of his world and the beating of his heart. This was his one true love.

He looked at him with such worshipful submission that Mycroft almost sobbed at the sight.

Those eyes. That love.

If ever he had doubted the purpose of his existence the answer was here. This is what he was born for. This is what made life worth living. This was the meaning of it all.

Sherlock whispered against his lips “Take me, do with me what you will, hide me in the darkest corner but please don’t ever ever let me be away from you.”

When Mycroft kissed him it was like the sun coming out after a decade long winter. Soft, glowing, warm, taking over the entire sky till you couldn’t see anything else.

As Mycroft sucked on his lower lip and then licked inside with his tongue, Sherlock felt as though he had gone into a trance.

His lover had taken his broken pieces and made a beautiful pattern.

He had taken his frayed threads of sorrow and loneliness and memories and woven a soft new cloth adding joy and life and love.

He had taken the scattered rays of his life and made me a rainbow full of magnificent colours.

He had gathered up all his sighs and echoes of his cries and made it into a harmony.

He had taken the rubble and ashes of their life and moulded it into a room, a sanctuary.

He was finally home.

.

.

As the kiss deepened, Sherlock wondered if he could really hear a hundred violins playing and Mycroft wondered if the ethereal glow he could see around them was just a trick of the sunlight.

They did not care anymore. They did not care if the world accepted them. They did not care if the heaven sent signs to support them or curses to destroy them.

Life after life and time after time, they knew that they were meant to be together. The two of them for each other.

No one else.

**Author's Note:**

> The Cabinet of Dr. Caligary was inspired by various experiences from the lives of Janowitz and Mayer, both pacifists who were left distrustful of authority after their experiences with the military during World War I. The film has been characterized as presenting themes on brutal and irrational authority; the destabilized contrast between insanity and sanity; the subjective perception of reality; and the duality of human nature.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aimAeeDx2p4  
> Of course it is one of Mycroft’s favourites!


End file.
